On Aug. 1, Carnival Corp. owners of Carnival Cruise Lines and Holland America Princess Alaska Tours, completed its purchase of the White Pass & Yukon. Railroad President Bob Berto tells Trains News Wire that the company’s immediate focus is continuing the safe operation of the railroad and maintaining its historic character. The 3-foot gauge White Pass & Yukon links Skagway with Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, and was completed in 1900. The sale also included all of the railroad’s port facilities in Skagway.
In June, when the sale was first announced, Carnival officials said they planned to invest in the port area to ensure that Skagway could handle larger cruise ships in the future. But Berto says those investments will spread to the railroad as well.
“We are currently undergoing the process of evaluating our entire fleet of locomotives. This will take some time and we are committed to making sure we can continue to operate our legacy locomotives in a safe, reliable and efficient manner,” he says. “At the same time, we are soliciting proposals to see what the industry can provide us in terms of options to grow our fleet. The anticipated growth of passengers arriving to Skagway is driving the need to evaluate and improve our operations model. We are looking forward to seeing what is proposed and how additional engines will integrate into our fleet.”
“We are committed to providing the capital to grow our business but are going to do it with the history and heritage of White Pass in mind,” Berto adds.
Berto tells Trains News Wire it’s “still too early” to provide additional details on what the expanded fleet might look like. The White Pass & Yukon’s fleet includes 20 diesels, 69 restored and replica passenger coaches, and two Baldwin steam locomotives: 2-8-0 No. 69 built in 1907 and 2-8-2 No. 73 constructed in 1947.
For more information on the railroad, go to www.wpyr.com.
Carnival appears to be very involved. I was there in June and asked one of the train crew about the pending change in ownership. I was told that Carnival representatives already had at least one meeting with the UTU representatives about the future of the railroad. The person I was talking with felt at that time it was a positive development for the railroad. As Carnival/Princess/Holland America continue building bigger ships bringing more passengers to Skagway, they can provide access to the capital needed for the railroad to keep up with demand. I also learned several mines north of Whitehorse are opening, and the Klondike Highway is expected to become more heavily traveled. Two bridges along the highway are being replaced which will allow heavier trucks to haul the ore to tidewater in Skagway. Some believe this in turn may drive more passenger / tourist traffic off the Klondike Highway onto the White Pass and Yukon Route. If this all happens, it sounds like Mr. Berto and the WP&YR will be ready. I hope they can reopen the line from Carcross to Whitehorse someday.
Shouldn’t of foolishly scrapped one of the GE’s just because the rebuilder went under.
Brian Norden,
Normally in these types of LLC’s if one of the minority partners is a very public company(like Carnival in this case), they will take the leadership role in the new venture and let the silent and/or more private partners stay in the background…not saying this is the case here, and that isn’t how they always work, but that’s the most likely scenario here, especially since the cruise lines bring a lot of those passengers to Skagway, they’ll want to increase this volume and provide the additional WP&Y trip as well.
additional copies of this mode. I was just typing away when previous post decided to post itself.
The Durango & Silverton has entered an agreement with Motive Power Equipment and Solutions, Inc. for two brand new 3-foot gauge 2000hp diesel locomotives. Perhaps the White Pass could join in the order for
My understanding is that Carnival through a subsidiary has a significant — but not a majority — interest in the new ownership of the White Pass & Yukon Route. The railroad’s website says this about its ownership:
“White Pass & Yukon Route was purchased by Klondike Holdings, LLC on August 1, 2018.
Klondike Holdings, LLC is an ownership group formed of majority partner Survey Point Holdings and its affiliates and long time partners based in Seattle along with minority partner Carnival PLC.”
WP&YR owns the port facilities at Skagway and one of the affiliates of Survey Point Holdings is providing vessel agent, stevedoring services, etc. at Skagway for the cruise and freight activity at the port.
Mr. Berto has a long-time involvement with Survey Point Holdings.